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At the outbreak of a flu epidemic, English City boy Jack seeks solace and sanctuary with his parents at their holiday home in the Alps. When he reaches his destination they have evacuated and it’s evident that the effects of the killer virus have devastated this remote corner of world.

A haunting image of a lone horse is all director Hendrik Faller needs to show you that this tiny village has stopped functioning as place people live and work.

Unable to leave Jack faces up to riding out the disease in isolation. Until the gas mask wearing, pistol-toting Kara breaks in and holds him prisoner in his own home. He is totally unprepared and his pathetic attempts to fight back only serve to demonstrate his ineptitude away from the comforts of his civil, urban environs. He just wants her gone, but when a couple of aggressive strangers come knocking he is forced to reassess his situation. He knows nothing of the desperation that has ripped the village apart, the men who want inside and want Kara… She knows everything, but is saying very little to help get him on her side. Her prior knowledge is a divisive point of conflict in the face of their mutual need to survive. An unlikely union is created.

Dialogue is sparse, as the language of cinema does the talking for Faller. What we know and understand about these characters is in their faces and how they react to situations. But Jack needs to understand. He prods, pushes and fights Kara every step of the way. Inevitably the truth is even more devastating than the mystery Jack is trying to solve.

On the surface Mountain Fever is an excellent, tension filled struggle for what’s right between a handful of scared and confused people enduring the aftermath of mass deaths from the flu epidemic. It is also a cruel metaphor about nature’s unwillingness to yield to human wants and needs. People are no more important to the planet’s eco-system than trees, ants or streams. Nature is neither malicious nor personal. It’s the virus that can kill your friends and family. It’s the snow-capped mountains and forest that physically cut you off from the rest of society. It’s the freezing cold that stops you travelling too far on foot. And as Faller brilliantly shows, once the id is denied hope, fear is nature’s way of reducing people to two simple choices: fight or flight.

Boots On The Ground is a second feature for writer/director Louis Melville. It’s about five British soldiers who escape a Taliban ambush in the wilds of Afghanistan as the conflict is about to draw to a close. In the aftermath they are lost in action, but safe at the foot of a forgotten fort. They spot five more soldiers in the near distance entering the building. They shout and they chase but get no answer. In their search of the fort for their unknown colleagues they discover millions of dollars, a gun and ammunition store and something much worse - a malevolent supernatural force. After a relative slow build, that helps us get to know the characters, the scares come thick and fast as the evil, shape-shifting presence warps their sense of reality, time and place.

Boots On The Ground is a found footage film on steroids. It’s experimental too. What you see is always via cameras attached to the soldiers heads. There’s a single ten minute long take with the actors travelling more than half a mile over heavy terrain on foot that makes you feel like you’re a soldier on the run too. Your head is dizzy with their excitement. However, jerky images – stock in trade of found footage horror - can become wearing over the duration of the film once the novelty wears off.

Nevertheless, Boots On The Ground is an innovative and scary experiment in actors literally shooting each other’s performances

BOOTS ON THE GROUND Director Louis Melville talks on the Britflicks Podcast

David Moreau's (Them, 2006) Alone is an adaptation of Fabien Vehlmann and Bruno Gazzotti's graphic novel series Seuls (aka Alone). Go kart racing Leila is a troubled teen who gets into a fight with another girl at school over a cruel remark regarding her comatose brother. She storms out before anyone can reprimand her for her violent actions and spends the day at the funfair. The next morning she wakes up at home with no memory of how she got there and her parents are missing. In fact, there's no one in her street. No one is in her town. Cars are abandoned on the highway. In her search for answers she hooks with four other kids and together they uncover the mysteries of this apocalyptic nightmare.

A bold attempt to leave the city is thwarted by a dense, hot dust cloud. Radio contact with an emergency services person warns them against driving into the fog and a meet up is arranged to evacuate them. Meanwhile, a mysterious, knife-wielding killer stalks them. As they work together to evade this additional threat they get nearer and nearer to the answer to the overarching question - what has happened to their world?

Sofia Lesaffre, as Leila, puts in a strong performance as the spunky, determined petrol head. Stephane Bak, as Dodji, the enigmatic black kid from the projects they found handcuffed in the police station. He is less in your face and much more withdrawn than his younger counter parts. Like he wants to be just left alone, but through hanging with the others they draw out the good in him.

The end of the world scenario is a real tease for much of Alone, but when they draw back the curtains on the reality of the situation a whole other answer is provided to explain the kid’s plight. Fans of the graphic novel will be more than prepared. Cynics with no prior knowledge of Alone may well be disappointed in this final direction of travel for the story.

Set in the 1980s, Jackals is about the dysfunctional Powell clan. They’ve hired badass, religious cult deprogrammer, Jimmy (Stephen Dourf), to kidnap their eldest son Justin (Ben Sullivan). The venue for the intervention is a remote family retreat in the woods.

Mom (Deborah Kara Unger) and estranged dad (Johnathon Schaech) have reunited for the sake of Justin. Neither wants to recognise what he’s become. He’s got a new name and refuses to answer to the one they gave him. Younger brother Campbell (Nick Roux) is torn between wanting to save his sibling and cutting him loose. The final piece of the messed up jigsaw is teen mom Samantha (Chelsea Ricketts) with Justin’s baby child.

None of them make the slightest dent on his deranged personality. He is adamant as to who he is now. He warns them they’ll come for him. They’re his family. He tells his mother she’ll be raped by them. He tells Samantha they’ll sacrifice the baby.

First the Powell’s underestimate the evil intent of the cult and when the attacks start, they are poorly equipped – physically and mentally - to cope with the battle for Justin. There’s a beautifully scary moment where the animal mask-wearing cult come out of the shadows. Slowly but surely the audience learns, as the family does, how out of their depth the Powell’s really are as tens of silhouettes of people quickly adds up to insurmountable odds.

On the one hand it’s a dark family drama that tragically backfires as each person’s hope of a renewed relationship with Justin is destroyed. On the other it’s a fight to the death with a murderous, mask-wearing horde who surround them and want Justin returned to them. Jackals is a home invasion movie with a difference. Instead of the typical surprise, killer guest(s), this story is of how the victims unwittingly lure their invaders to them.

RUIN ME

Director: Preston DeFrancis

Writers: Trysta A Bissett & Preston DeFrancis

Alexandra reluctantly joins her horror nut boyfriend Nathan for an experiential camping trip called Slasher Sleepout - part hide and seek, part puzzle solving, but mainly its so you can pretend to be in a scary movie for a couple of nights. Two strung out emo kids - Pitch and his dominating partner Marina, greet them. They couldn’t be more excited to be doing this for the fourth time. There’s an everyman film geek – in the shape of likeable Larry - and the enigmatic Tim makes it six for the group.

As one of the grubby organisers strips them of their bags and phones he finds Alexandra’s tampax. His snarky Carrie joke flies over her head. Favourite films are discussed during these get to know moments. The hipster choice is Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers and Pitch chooses a wilfully obscure 21st century rip off of Last House On The Left called Chaos. Alexandra’s favourite film is Dirty Dancing. Pitch lectures her on the horror subtext in her supposed innocent, all American movie. Not only is she is a fish out of water, she’s the least prepared, in terms of prior knowledge of the genre canon, for the simulated, nocturnal frights that await them. After signing their waivers, learning the safe words and agreeing to let the actors touch them, the organiser promises to ruin them over the next 36 hours.

Dropped in a remote woodland location they follow a trail of clues and solve a few puzzles before resting at the tropiest of horror tropes – an isolated camping spot. They’re expecting jumps and scares. That’s what they’ve paid for. But it all takes a turn for absurd when Tim is missing come the morning and one of them appears to get their throat cut. Real and unreal blur into one for bewildered Alexandra and what was billed as a game soon becomes a fight for survival or is she just a participant in a sick theatre production that has singled her out as its next victim to ‘ruin’. Once she distrusts the conceit, Ruin Me has a ball jumping the shark of its own story universe as they slowly tease out the logic of what’s happening to Alexandra.

Ruin Me, like last year’s Frightfest Discovery screen gem, The Unravelling is an illusion of the film you think you’re watching. Except with Ruin Me, you know it’s meant to trick you. However, it won’t help you as it keeps you guessing and moving the goal posts until the very end.

Brit horror/comedy EAT LOCALS is Lock, Stock actor Jason Flemyng’s directorial debut. Contained to a remote farm an assembly of eight elite vampires – headed up by the Duke (Vincent Regan) - are together for one of their twice a century meet ups. They’ve a new member to consider and a modern day dilemma to resolve – killing people in a technological/DNA age is making it hard to cover up their crimes. Tony Curran (the psycho killer in 2015’s Awaiting) stands out as the disgruntled one looking to seize power from The Duke. It is his obstinacy that ultimately lands them in a stand-off with a platoon of soldiers who want to capture them for more than just national security reasons.

The film is at its best once the vampires go on the offensive. One Foot In The Grave star, Annette Crosby is an unlikely choice for a slo-mo, sub-machine shoot out. Played out to the strains of Cilla Black’s Love’s Just A Broken Heart, it’s an arresting sight. And her sneaky zimmer frame Trojan horse kill uses two blades to gruesome full effect. Fellow Lock, Stock alumni Dexter Fletcher and Gavin & Stacy’s Ruth Jones play evil comedy duo Mr and Mrs Thatcher – no spoilers here about why their farm was chosen by the vamps. However, one particularly funny line from Fletcher is elevated way beyond the context of the scene just by Danny King’s genius script choice for their surname: “When you trace it all back, it was Mrs Thatcher’s fault. I mean I loved her, but she was fucking nuts!”

Flemyng happily wears his influences on his sleeve. For example, Curran’s Triumph motorcycle ride across an open field is a big salute to the iconic ‘The Great Escape’ (1963).

Eat Locals never takes itself too seriously – think Cockneys vs Zombies (2012) – and is peppered with enough knowing gags, observations and action to have you chuckling one minute and horrified the next.

EAT LOCALS Official Trailer

ATTACK OF THE ADULT BABIES

Director: Dominic Brunt

Writers: Paul Shrimpton, Story by Joanne Mitchell

So here’s the thing there’s a huge porcine monster that defecates gold nuggets if you feed it a certain type of human shit. For centuries a cabal of elites and government leaders have known this secret and harvested the infinite supply of precious metal to maintain their wealth, power bases, fund wars etc. Welcome to the crazy world of Attack Of The Adult Babies.

The story starts straight forward enough… A modern family of four plays a board game in their nice suburban home. This contrived attempt at fun turns sour when the mother’s teenage daughter presents the father’s teenage son with a pair of her knickers and sexualised sketch of her. The quasi-incest relationship outrage is short lived when two incompetent Russian gangsters invade their home. Mother and the two children are forced at gun-point to retrieve a box file, or dad dies.

Their mission takes them to a stately home-cum-hospital facility in the countryside… And face to face with the bonkers sight of adult babies made up of high-ranking British officials from cabinet to senior judges being cared for by saucy nurses. A wacky fiesta of Troma meets Carry On Bloodfest trash ensues.

After the intensity of the zombie outbreak/relationship drama Before Dawn and the market town revenge thriller Bait, it’s a surprise third feature choice for director Dominic Brunt, but you can bet it was a ball to make.

The gags are slapstick and the gore is offally gruesome, replete with buckets of fake blood. At one point Dinnerladies’ Andrew Dunn (the father) is confessing to his two children about his involvement with the adult babies while picking through his spilled intestines. Or there’s the chainsaw up between the legs and through the abdomen of Emmerdale’s very game Sally Dexter – a world away from her 1986 Olivier Award.

For all the in yer face aspects of AOTAB, two of the funniest moments come from the simple ability to make a joke go uncomfortably past the point of no return. There’s Dunn’s inability to kick-start a scooter and an obtuse ‘Intermission’ where the screen is filled by two bored glamour models tapping their feet to muzak techno. And then there’s the whole psychedelic third act as the gold shitting monster reads the young boys mind before morphing into a Lee Hardcastle blood, guts and plasticine set piece finale… Truly bonkers!

Adult Babies is absurd and OTT make no mistake. It isn’t as coherent as Brunt’s past efforts behind the camera. Too many ideas are competing for the story’s attention, but individual moments and sequences can be savoured in their own right if puerile and ridiculousness are your thing.

Dominic Brunt talks ATTACK OF THE ADULT BABIES on the Britflicks podcast

ATTACK OF THE ADULT BABIES Official Trailer

COLD HELL (DIE HÖLLE)

Presented by Duke Mitchell Film Club

Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky

Writers: Stefan Ruzowitzky

After another tawdry night on the town ferrying about the ungrateful and the drunk of Vienna in her taxi, Ozge (Violetta Schurawlow) unwinds in her apartment. A foul smell from outside leads her to gaze out of a window overlooking her neighbour’s place and into the eyes of the serial killer who’s frying up his latest victim’s remains. During the police investigation frightened Ozge is denied any kind of protection from the murderer. She’s on probation for a drugs related crime – why should they care about her. The loudest, and seemingly least sympathetic is Detective Christian Steiner (Tobias Moretti).

On the surface Ozge is a tough woman. She’s a trained Thai boxer and demonstrates her kickass abilities when she delivers rough justice to a man who unwittingly chooses her to get into a pissing contest with. However, she has her demons and there’s a soft heart to his hard exterior that makes her fearful. Her temporary homelessness forces her to find solace and safety with her family but that only serves to focus her mind on a harrowing family secret and how psychologically scarred she is by her parents. It also lands her with the added burden of her cousin’s recently orphaned baby daughter to protect from Ozge’s dad.

With the killer closing in and nowhere to stay she dumps herself and the child on Detective Steiner’s doorstep. Surprisingly, he takes pity on her and allows her to stay with him and his Alzheimer’s father (Friedrich von Thun). Perversely, this is where director Stefan Ruzowitzky decides to inject a little levity to Ozge’s dire situation. Von Thun’s confused character is the perfect diffuser of the accumulated tension as the hunted Ozge turns hunter with guiding hand of Steiner. A bungled attempt to arrest the killer triggers a frenetic, nail-biting and brutal finale.

Cold Hell is a throwback to morally ambiguous thrillers of the eighties such as William Friedkin’s To Live And Die In LA. Ozge’s ability to keep picking herself up and go again is akin to the hardboiled heroes of a Dashell Hammett novel. This film has got the lot: fast-paced and wonderfully tense, and a complex story that is emotionally rich and rewarding.

At 2014’s Frightfest Evrim Ersoy and Alex Kidd (aka ‘Duke Mitchell Film Club’) were invited to select one film. They presented the mindboggling sci-fi Coherence. Ever since then, those in the Frightfest know have learnt to trust the Duke’s taste in movies. This noir thriller might just be their best yet.